Engineering is Going Overseas - Goodbye Jobs II 27

[havesealwilltravel]

The original thread was becoming too long. Let's continue the discussion here.

 

[jmw]

Intersting. Is emissions per capita the way to go? Some countries have such a population problem that a "per capita" determination suggests they are "innocent". Where does Indonesia figure? When the forrest burning is going on airlines have to divert flights from the region because the smoke blankets vast areas. When it comes to damage to the ecology maybe we need a sharper measure. Maybe we should measure the impact of pollutuion on the environments ability to cope with it. Perhaps we should look at pollution per square kilometer and then relate it to the nature of the local environment. I ask, i have no idea of the answer but governments are good at changing the way they measure things to present a better or a worse picture. Something about "lies, damned lies and statistics."
What impact does this have on US Engineers jobs? It is nice to console engineers that their jobs are going because (a) they have been pollutting the environment and (b) now they are not? Jobs going from an eonomy when it cuts back on production to stop pollution is one thing, jobs going from an economy to somewhere else is another. Still, i think this is now wandering from the thread.

 

[QCE]

Ietech,

Regarding the environmental laws being stricter. From what I have seen some European countries have stricter emission regulations than the states. I think you will agree that it would be quit a bit of work to prove this either way or else you probably would have proved me wrong by now. Since some countries in Europe are ruled by green parties I guess they would have a little stronger regs than the US.

Actually this is not important anymore since you have now changed your arguement that nondeveloped countries are not playing fair with the states regarding environmental regs.

Manufacturing jobs are going to nondeveloped countries from developed countries not just the US. However there still seems to be a lot of engineering jobs staying in the developed countries. Maybe this thread should clarify manufacturing jobs are not necessarily engineering jobs.

"Although the link is informative it doesn't address per-capita in major manufacturing competitors with the U.S. This is what I am especially interested in and I will see if I can find something that deals with those countries also."

Actually there is a slide that shows that the USA has more carbon emissions than all of Asia put together. Although these reports are a few years old and carbon emissions are not the whole picture - it is pretty good indication of the naivety of the group of people that attacked me last time I stated that the US is a large GHG emitter per capita.

I will leave it with this - I am not a Kyoto nut as I don't think the agreement has all of the answers and I hope that engineering careers will thrive in all countries with new innovative ideas. Yes in some cases I have been playing devils advocate on this site to try and stimulate conversation and steer it away from a thread that is just a complaining session about lose of jobs.

Have a great thread! Ietech thanks for playing along and keeping it interesting.

 

[ietech]

QCE,

Thanks for the input I have learned some new stuff and intend to pursue it further outside the forum. Although I am not too concerned about environmental issues in themselves, I am interested in how they impact jobs and the cost of manufacturing and engineering.

As I have stated before there are several things encouraging U.S. companies to set up operations in other countries, i.e. labor cost, plant setup and maintenance, environmental regs, possibly child lobor, prisoner labor and sweat shop work environments. I'm not sure that all of these apply to the loss of jobs but suspect that there is some relationship.

Since this website does not have an environmental forum I will see if I can find some other to get additional info. from informed folks such as yourself.

Thanks again for the dialog

ietech

 

[JoeTank]

You all may be interested to know that there is an excellent article about this topic in the latest issue of Engineering Times, a monthly newsletter of NSPE. The author noted that the high basic wage/benefits situation in the US is adequately offset by increase productivity and resoursefulness of the US firms. What US manufacturers cannot overcome are the additional taxes, environmental requirements, etc that legislators seem to be comfortable with heaping onto the manufacturing firms. This article isn't going to settle this topic once and for all, but I was encouraged to know that our industry could compete in the basis of wages and benefits. It's all that other stuff that they cannot control that is sending US manufacturing jobs offshore.

The playing field is not level and we are our own worst opponent. It looks like we have made the playing field unlevel for ourselves. No reason to heap more upon ourselves by buying into Kyoto, eh? Reminds me of the old Pogo cartoon... "We have seen the enemy and he is us"

Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants

http://www.tankindustry.com

 

[ietech]

Steve,

Thank you for that information. It's nice to know rhat there might just be some validity to my opinions.

Don't ya just love PoGo

ietech

 

[flamby]

SteveBraune,

Manufacturing-engineers in India make only USD 14000 per annum, which will be offset by an US engineer by virtue of his high productivity in just two months. What is the trick that you manage to do so is beyond my understanding ;-).

(Above is joke, below is fact)

I do not agree with what you have cited. There is just one and only angle to outsorcing and that is wage. Believe me, the wages in US are too high to be compensated by anything but outsourcing.

 

[JoeTank]

flame,
Sorry if I was not clear, the cited article was not about engineering positions, it was about US manufacturing firms coping with higher US wages. US productivity and efficiencies can overcome the wage differences for US manufacturing firms competing against off shore manufacturers. It was the other self-imposed stuff that screwed things up. Engineering salaries, while part of the equation, were not the focus of the article.


Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants

http://www.tankindustry.com

 

[arunmrao]

"Bush Blesses outsourcing to India"
Please refer to the link and fireaway.Bush promises 2.6 million jobs to be created and economy growth of 4%..

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/488790.cms

 

[funnelguy]

Great link arunmrao, keep them coming!

 

[jmw]

Now, what was i saying about politicians?.....

 

[PSE]

Anyone who believes in the statement

"We're from the government, and here to help you."

deserves what they are about to get. Obviously according to Bush, the proverbial bird in the hand is not worth the two in the bush (is there a pun there?) Of course, this being an election year, a politician will promise anything to anyone in order to win votes.

2.6 million jobs created? I'd love to see it but no guarantees there folks. In what industries might they be? What relative value to the ones being outsourced?

Once again, the November election choices will be between the "lesser of two evils". Oh how I love election years.

 

[ewh]

"Once again, the November election choices will be between the "lesser of two evils". Oh how I love election years."

Also known as the evil of two lessers.

 

[EngineerDave]

I don't think Bush or any other politician explicitly has control of this until new legislation is written.

What will our new industries be?

 

[Plugman]

Here is an article that appeared in our local (Milwaukee,WI) newspaper today.

http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/feb04/207825.asp

A little background: Thomas More high school is a local private school. Marquette and Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) are universities within city limits with good sized engineering schools.

 

[funnelguy]

The article seems to premise many of its statements on the theory that the US should remain a leader in engineering and technology. Why should this be true?

Many engineers saw the loss of manufacturing jobs to offshore outsourcing as a smart business move and the logical thing to do. Why would the loss of engineering leadership and jobs be any different? Engineers are simply another resource or commodity to be managed. Do we really care where the analysis was done so long as it was adequate? If the pay scale in the US continues to degrade, fewer students will undertake the rigors of an engineering education. Seems like a natural progression to me.

Also, today's CAD and CAE tools and related advances in communication have made today's engineers much more productive. We therefore wouldn't need as many for a given level of activity.

 

[rbcoulter]

The article just recently referenced typifies the propaganda of the "engineering shortage" in the U.S.
I must have read over a hundred articles just like it.
This "press" seems to come from industry, academia and
and certain high profile engineering organizations that are aligned with them. The government's own data & projections contradict this (see

http://www.dol.gov).

This article, like the others, always seem to imply that the problem is the lack of supply of engineers without ever mentioned that the demand for engineers has slowed.
Students simply do not go into fields where there are fewer jobs. In the U.S. you can have a better future in the legal and medical fields and that is why students go there.
Engineering jobs are going overseas because the engineers can be paid less in India, etc. The supply of engineers China & India is increasing to meet this demand.

 

[EngineerDave]

Exactly, should we be less worried about jobs because there are less engineers entering the market every year, or is this truly a sign of lower demand for engineers due to manufacturing losses?

I'll give my two cents on this more later. It pains me to see new graduates struggling to find jobs after 4 or sometimes 5 years of study (which was my case since I went to a school where co-op was mandatory).

Design News had a similar article on the decline of engineers. But let's not let politicians or businessmen use this as a reason for outsourcing. Lack of engineers is most certainly not the reason.

 

[sacem1]

Going back to the essence of this thread:
Engineering is going overseas?
Yes, economic laws say that you are not going to stop the flow of engineering jobs, and other careers as well, until you can make your home costs at least equal with the cost of sending the job to another place, and let me add that this is true for any country in the world, the jobs are going to go where the cost is lower.

So the first thing to do is set a goal: Lower your costs, because engineering jobs total cost is not only the engineer wage but also the fringe benefits, work place costs, enviromental costs, taxes, overhead, manegerial costs and "way of living costs".

As a tourist I've roamed a lot the States and find your country lives in a buy-consume-waste state of mind that to foreigners is bewildering. All of this amounts to "way of living costs" i.e. You should save energy: in winter you are in sleeves inside offices because its so hot/in summer you wear a jacket in the same office because its so cold inside. Your buildings are kept alight all night just so they look nice, For enviromental interest and reduced costs, recicling should be implemented: there has to be found yet a Hotel/Motel that has a bin for recycling newspapers (which would save a bundle of those trees you where talking before). Your medical expenses could be brought down if generic medication was more in use, absurd medical expenses were controlled.
Your tax burden is high because your goverment is so willing to spend money in forein adventures, i.e. ever wonder how much did each american had to pay for getting their kids killed in Vietnam, and how much are they going to foot in the Irak bill, besides the daily loss of valuable lifes. Lets not forget the high cost of welfare which mantains a living standard for "poor people" that would be "better than middle class" in other countries.
A lot has been said in this thread about "top exec officers" wages, golden parachutes and benefits, even if the company losses money or gets shut down, but that has to be ended, salaries paid can not be self given or by a board of directors which in turn earn also in accordance with the top guy, or gal.
As an individual, when each of you start living with saving in their minds and not falling to mermaid songs that make them buy consumer appliances that are not really needed, and foreign buil mostly, 120$ sneakers for their sons/daughters and so on, and you know better what I mean then you will be able to have a surplus of cash which will be needed when the US dollar losses its buying power against the Euro/yen currency and makes US costs more competitive in world markets.
Its going to happen, the dollar goes down, your way of living returns to more world like standards, productivity increases and engineers will have more work in a more stable situation but indeed with a more reasonable way of life and then maybe you wll get those lost jobs back.

SACEM1

 

[jmw]

If you think the US tax burden is high, try the UK. Taxation and cost of living is much worse. OK, in the US you may pay state, federal and payroll taxes plus pay for health insurance but in the UK you can find nearly half your salary has gone straight to the government even when you are in the average wage bracket. Then factor in some of the highest taxes in Europe on fuel, cars, tobaco, drink food etc. In the Uk many of the engineers are going overseas... to where? well the phrase "the brain drain" applied (in earlier years) to engineers headed for the US. Now that includes Canada, New Zealand and Australia. At the same time European citizenship rules means lots of people moving into the UK.

 

[sacem1]

I tried to state the US situation as a basic thread response but the migration of work and eventually workers is a common situation right now all around the world the point is to try to make it the more painless way for averyone involved.
In GB you sure have a big tax burden and it is very expensive because of all the social shelters that it provides to its own citizens plus all the commonwealth inmigrants.
Good luck
SACEM1